During my blog hiatus, I am introducing a new series of guest posts — Real Life {While} Homeschooling.
Over the next 4 weeks, I will be introducing you to 9 inspiring friends, who are homeschooling with some kind of real life challenge. I know that you will be as blessed by their stories as I am by knowing them.
Today, please welcome Shanna!
My husband is in outside sales and meets new people almost every day. Occasionally it will come up in his conversation that we have nine children and that I homeschool them. The most common response that he receives from these people whom I have never met is, “Your wife is a saint!”
Again, I have to reiterate that these people don’t know me. It’s quite possible that I have utterly low moral standards. For all they know, my seventh grader may be illiterate and my 4th grader may not be potty trained. Yet they don’t say that I must be a saint, they say “Your wife is a saint!” I always find it quite amusing that in some people’s minds, the mere act of having nine children and homeschooling them elevates my status to that of the Apostle Paul or Mother Theresa. But I must dispel the myth.
The only “sainthood” I can claim comes only through my sanctification through the redeeming work of Christ, and not from anything I have ever done. And I am certainly no Super Mom. But I understand how people may look at our large crew and wonder “how I do it?”
Practically speaking, there are a few things that I probably do different than the homeschool mom with only one or two children. And because I know that sometimes people truly are looking for practical advice in homeschooling a large crew, I will outline a few of these ideas here.
First of all, before the school year begins I spend a significant amount of time researching curricula. Our family is unique and there are a lot of unique minds in our home. I look for curricula that will appeal to our children, that I will enjoy teaching, and most importantly, that will fit in our schedule. That almost always means choosing curricula that works with multiple ages. I read reviews and look at sample days to find out if I can make the curricula work with my many children.
Also I create a master family schedule divided into 30-minute increments. I highly recommend Managers of Their Homes by Steven and Teri Maxwell for tips on creating a great family schedule. But I must emphasize that I feel that a detailed schedule is only helpful if you are willing to not let the schedule overtake your life and especially your emotions. There is never a day when we follow our master family schedule to a tee…it is just a guideline for our day. It is helpful for me to organize our day this way so that I see when I am trying to cram too much in. It is also helpful to reign us all back in when the inevitable distraction occurs.
Finally, I divide our children usually into groups of two or three and teach the youngest first in the morning working my way up to the oldest in the afternoon. I’ll go mad if I’m trying to answer questions about 6 different levels of curricula at once. So my kids know that they each have individual work that they can do on their own without my help. If they have a question, then they must wait until it is their turn with the teacher to address that question. I start with my little kids for two reasons….
1. For my own accountability. There seems to be nothing more pressing to me than the fact that my oldest child is nearing high school age. I feel like I still have so much to teach him and so little time. But somehow after I’m so exhausted from a full day teaching all those things to my oldest, my mind starts to play tricks on me and I suddenly start rationalizing that I have plenty of time to teach shapes and numbers to my pre-K student or letter sounds to my Kindergartner. But that’s just not true! My little ones need my time as their teacher just as much as my big ones do.
2. My little kids are the most excited to get the school day started! It never fails…if I start my day teaching an older child, I will have a young one pulling at my arm asking, “When is my turn to do school?!” When they get 30 minutes to an hour of my undivided attention early in the day, it is easier for them to play quietly later when I am working with big siblings.
But mostly what I want people to know, and this is where the myth-dispelling come in, is that a mom of nine homeschools much in the same way that a mom of one does. Just like the mom of one, I worry about getting it all done. Just like her, I work really hard to do what’s best for my kids. Just like her, I mess up a lot. Just like her, I feel overwhelmed. And just like her, I pray for strength to a God that is able no matter the number of minds to educate.
I once asked my 92 year old grandmother, the mother of 14 children, “how she did it?” She looked at me like that was simplest question she’d ever been asked. “Well, I just did what I had to do. I got up every morning, said ‘thank you, God, for this day’, and went with it.” It was the most freeing answer she could ever give me. You don’t have to be a saint to homeschool your kids. When push comes to shove, no matter the number of kids you have, we moms will wake up, say “Thank you, God!” and do what we have to do.